A Letter to the Comrades

(With Reference to the Forthcoming Publication of the Organ of the Party Majority)

Written:Written on November 29 (December 12), 1904Published:Published in leaflet form December 1904.

      Published according to the leaflet text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      publisher??,pubdate??,

      Moscow,Volume 7,

      pages523-528.Translated:Fineberg AbrahamTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2002).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

DearComrades,

Today,at a meeting of a close circle of Bolsheviks abroad, a
      final decision was taken on a question that in principle has
      long been decided: the publication of a Party periodical that
      will uphold and develop the principles of the majority against
      the organisational and tactical discord brought into the Party
      by the minority, and will serve the needs of the positive work
      of the organisations in Russia, against whom such a bitter fight
      is now being carried on by minority agents practically all over
      the country—a fight that terribly disorganises the Party
      at this vital historical juncture, and one that is carried on
      throughout by the most shameless splitting methods and tactics,
      amid hypocritical deploring of the split by the so-called
      Central Organ of the Party. We have done everything in our power
      to steer the struggle into a Party channel; ever since January
      we have been fighting for a congress, as the only worthy Party
      way to end this impossible situation. By now it is perfectly
      clear that the activities of the Central Committee following its
      desertion to the minority consist almost entirely in desperately
      resisting a congress, and that the Council is resorting to the
      most outrageous and unpardonable tricks to put off convening
      it. The Council is directly sabotaging a congress; whoever has
      still to be convinced of that after its latest decisions,
      printed in the supplement to Nos. 73-74 ofIskra,
      will see it from Orlovsky’s pamphletThe Council Against the

 Party,[2]which we published the other day. It
      is perfectly clear now that unless they unite and resist our
      so-called central institutions, themajority will not be able to uphold their position, to uphold
      the party spirit in its struggle against the circle
      spirit. Union of the Bolsheviks in Russia has long been put
      forward by them as an urgent need. Recall the tremendous
      sympathetic response to the programmatic resolution of the
      twenty

				 two[1](programmatic for our struggle within the Party);
      recall the proclamation of the nineteen, issued in printed form
      by the Moscow Committee (October 1904); lastly, nearly all Party
      committees are aware that a number of private conferences of
      majority committees have lately been held, and in part are still
      being

	held,[3]and
	that the most vigorous and
      definite efforts are being made to solidly unite the majority
      committees for resistance to the overweening Bonapartists on
      the Council, Central Organ, and Central Committee.

Wehope that these efforts (or rather steps) will be made
      generally known in the very near future, when the results will
      allow of a definite statement of what has already been
      achieved. It need hardly be said that the majority would have
      been quite unable to conduct their self-defence without a
      publishing house of their own. As you may already know from our
      Party literature, the new Central Committee simply ejected our
      pamphlets (and even the covers of pamphlets already set up)
      from the Party printing office, thus turning the latter into the
      printing office of a circle, and refused the direct request of
      the majority members abroad and of committees in
      Russia—the Riga Committee, for instance—to have
      majority literature delivered to Russia. It became quite evident
      that falsification of Party opinion was a systematic tactic of
      the new Central Committee. We found ourselves faced unavoidably
      with the necessity of expanding our publishing activities and
      setting up our own transport arrangements. The committees that
      had broken off comradely relations with the editorial board of
      the Central Organ (see Dan’s admission in his account of the
      Geneva meeting of September 2,

 1904[4]—an
      interesting pamphlet) could not and cannot do without a
      periodical organ. A party without an organ, an organ without a
      party! This tragic formulation put forward by the majority asfar back as August inexorably decreed the one solution—the
      starting of our own organ. The young literary forces that have
      been coming abroad to uphold the vital cause of the majority of
      the comrades in Russia need a field for their energies. A number
      of Party writers in Russia likewise call insistently for an
      organ. In starting this organ, which will probably be calledVperyod, we are acting in full agreement with the mass
      of the Bolsheviks in Russia, and in full harmony with our
      conduct in the Party struggle. We are resorting to this weapon
      after a whole year spent in trying every, absolutely every way
      that is simpler, more economical for the Party, more perfectly
      in accordance with the interests of the working-class
      movement. We are by no means abandoning the struggle for a
      congress; on the contrary, we want to extend, co-ordinate, and
      support this struggle, want to help the committees to decide the
      new question now facing them—that of arranging a congress
      with— out the Council and Central Committee, and against
      the wishes of the Council and Central Committee—a question
      that requires the fullest and most serious discussion. We openly
      champion views and aims that have long since been stated, in a
      number of pamphlets, before the whole Party. We are fighting and
      will continue to fight for the consistent revolutionary line,
      against discord and

      wabblingin matters of both organisation and
      tactics (see the monstrously muddled letter of the newIskrato the Party organisations, printed for Party
      members only and concealed from the eyes of the

 world[5]). The announcement about the new organ will
      probably appear in a week or so, and the first issue somewhere
      between January 1 and 10, New Style. The editorial board will
      include all the majority writers that have so far come to the
      fore (Ryadovoy, Galyorka, Lenin, Orlovsky, who contributed
      regularly toIskrafrom its 46th to 51st issue, when it
      was conducted by Lenin and Plekhanov, and also very valuable
      younger forces). The body practically directing and organising
      the complex business of distribution, agencies, etc., etc.,
      will be formed (has already been formed in

 part)[6]through
      direct assignment of definite functions to
      definite comrades by a number of Russian committees (the Odessa,
      Ekaterinoslav, and Nikolayev committees, the four Caucasian
      committees, and severalnorthern ones, more particulars of which you will receive
      shortly). We now appeal to all comrades to give us all the
      support they can. We shall conduct the organ on the under
      standing that it is the organ of the movement in Russia, not of
      any 6migr6 circle. This requires, first and foremost, the most
      vigorous“literary”support, or rather
      literary participation, from Russia. I have put the word
      “literary” in italics and inverted commas in order
      to draw attention from the first to its special sense and
      caution against a misconception that is very common and highly
      detrimental to the work. It is a misconception that writers and
      only writers (in the professional sense of the term) can success
      fully contribute to a publication; on the contrary, it will be
      vital and alive only if for five leading and regularly
      contributing writers there are five hundred or five thousand
      contributors who are not writers. One of the shortcomings of the
      oldIskra, one which I always tried to rid it of (and
      which has grown to monstrous proportions in the newIskra) was that too little was done for it from
      Russia. We always used to print everything, practically without
      exception, that we received from Russia. A really live organ
      should print only a tenth of what it receives, using the rest as
      material for the information and guidance of the
      journalists. We must have as many Party workers as possible
      correspond with us, correspond in the ordinary, not the
      journalistic sense of the term.

Isolationfrom Russia, the engulfing atmosphere of the accursed
      6migr6 slough, weighs so heavily on one here that living contact
      with Russia is our only salvation. Let all re member that who
      want in fact, and not just in word, to consider (and tomake) our organ the organ of the entire
      “majority”, the organ of the mass of Russian
      comrades. Let everyone who regards this organ as his own and who
      is conscious of the duties of a Social-Democratic Party member
      abandon once and for all the bourgeois habit of thinking and
      acting as is customary towards legally published
      papers—the habit of feeling: it istheirbusiness
      to write and ours to read. All Social-Democrats must work for
      the Social-Democratic paper. We ask everyone to contribute, and
      especially the workers. Give the workers the widest opportunity
      to write for our paper, to write about positively everything, towrite as much as they possibly can about their daily lives,
      interests, and work—without such material a
      Social-Democratic organ will not be worth a brass farthing and
      will not
      deserve the name. In addition, please send usprivate
      letters, not intended as contributions to the paper, i.e.,
      not for publication, but by way of comradely intercourse with
      the editors and to keep them informed, and not only about facts
      and incidents, but about the prevailing sentiment and the
      everyday, “uninteresting”, humdrum, routine side of
      the movement. People who have not lived abroad cannot imagine
      how much we need such letters (there is absolutely nothing
      secret about them either, and to write such an uncoded letter
      once or twice a week is really something the busiest person can
      do). So write to us about the discussions at the workers’ study
      circles, the nature of these discussions, the subjects of study,
      and the things the workers ask about; about the state of
      propaganda and agitational work, and about contacts among the
      general public, in the army, and among the youth; above all
      write about any dissatisfaction the workers feel with us
      Social-Democrats, about the things that trouble them, about
      their suggestions, criticisms, etc. Matters relating to the
      practical organisation of the work are particularly interesting
      now, and there is no way of acquainting the editors with them
      except by a lively correspondence not of a journalistic nature,
      but simply of a comradely kind. Of course, not everyone has the
      ability or inclination to write, but ... don’t say “I
      can’t”, say “I don’t want to”; given the
      desire, one or two comrades who could write can be found in any
      circle, any group, even the smallest, even the most minor (the
      minor groups are often especially interesting, for they
      sometimes do the most important, though inconspicuous, part of
      the work). We here have from the start placed the secretarial
      work on a broad footing, draw ing on the experience of the oldIskra;and you for your part should know thatanybody, absolutely anybody who sets about it with
      patience and determination can without much difficulty make sure
      that all his letters, or nine-tenths of them, reach their
      destination. I say this on the basis of the three years’
      experience of the oldIskra, which had many such an
      informal correspondent (often unacquainted with any of the
      editors) who wrote with the utmost regularity.The police have long been quite unequal to the task of
      intercepting all foreign correspondence (they only seize a
      letter occasionally, if the writer has been unusually careless);
      and the great bulk of the oldIskra’smaterial
      always used to arrive in the most usual way, in ordinary letters
      sent to our addresses. A special word of warning against the
      practice of concentrating correspondence only in the hands of
      the committee and the secretaries. Nothing could be more harmful
      than such a monopoly. Essential as unity is in actions and
      decisions, in the matter of general information, of
      correspondence, it is quite wrong. It very often happens that
      the most interesting letters are from comparative
      “outsiders” (people more remote from the
      committees), who perceive morefreshlymuch that old
      experienced workers overlook because they are too used to
      it. Give every opportunity to the younger people to write to
      us—to the youth, to Party workers, to
      “centralists”, to organisers, and to ordinary
      rank-and-filers at impromptu meetings and mass rallies.

Onlygiven such a wide correspondence can we, by our joint efforts,
      make our paper a real organ ofthe working- class movement in
	Russia.We earnestly request, to have this letter read to every
      kind of meeting, study circle, subgroup, etc., etc.—as widely as
      possible—and to be informed how the workers receive this
      appeal. As to the idea of publishing a separate workers’
      (“popular”) organ and a general—guiding—intellectual
      organ, we are very sceptical about it; we should like to see the
      Social-Democratic newspaper the organ of the whole movement, to see
      the workers’ paper and the Social-Democratic paper fused in one. This
      can be achieved only if we have the most active support of the working
      class.

Withcomradely greetings,

[1]See pp. 454–61 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]TheCouncil Against the Party, by Orlovsky (V. V. Vorovsky), was issued
      in Geneva in November 1904 by the Bolshevik Bonch Bruyevich and Lenin
      Publishing House of Social-Democratic Party Literature.

[3]Three conferences of Bolshevik local committees were held in Sep
      tember-December 1904: 1) the Southern (Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, and Nikolayev
      committees); 2) the Caucasian (Baku, Batum, Tiflis, and Imeretian-Mingrelian
      committees); and 3) the Northern (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Riga,
      Northern, and Nizhni-Novgorod committees).

AtLenin’s suggestion, the conferences elected a Bureau of Major ity
      Committees for preparing and convening the Third Party Con gress, consisting
      of Gusev, Zemlyachka, Lyadov, Litvinov, and others. The Bureau, of which
      Lenin became a member, was formally constituted in December 1904.

[4]The meeting in Geneva on August 20 (September 2), 1904, was called by the
      Mensheviks by way of providing support for the “July
      Declaration” of the Central Committee. Both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks
      were invited. The Bolsheviks refused, however, to take part, and their
      representative withdrew after announcing that the meeting was not competent
      to pass resolutions in the name of both minority and majority. The
      Mensheviks were obliged to admit at this meeting that the Party committees
      in Russia opposed the con ciliation policy of the Central Committee and that
      the great major ity of them had broken off all relations with the MenshevikIskra.

[5]Lenin is
      referring to the letter to the Party organisations issued by the MenshevikIskrain November 1904, a criticism of which will be found inThe Zemstvo Campaign and “Iskra’s” Plan(pp. 497-518 of
      this volume).

[6]Lenin is referring to the Bureau of Majority Committees.